Who is Arthur Engoron, the judge in Donald Trump’s New York fraud trial? Career, family, net worth...
Judge Arthur Engoron is presiding over the $370 million civil lawsuit case for fraud against Trump in New York State. Who is the man with the gavel?
Judge Arthur Engoron has been serving in New York City Civil and New York Supreme Court for 20 years. For the past three years he has been presiding over the biggest trial of his career. Since August 2020, he has been overseeing the civil fraud lawsuit against Donald Trump and the Trump Organization.
Attorney General Letitia James initially asked for a $250 million fine as well as banning Trump and his adult sons from operating businesses in New York State. But after 10 weeks of testimony upped the ante to $370 million. Both the prosecution and defense have presented their closing statements and it will be up to the jurist alone to decide the final verdict. Despite the former president’s claims that he was denied one, it was in fact Trump’s defense team which failed to request a jury trial.
So who is the man under the robe holding the gavel over the fate of Trump and his businesses?
Who is Arthur Engoron, the judge in Donald Trump’s New York fraud trial? Career, family, net worth...
He was born in Queens and spent his early years in a house not far from where Trump grew up. His family though moved to Long Island where he attended The Wheatley School, a public high school. After he graduated in 1967, he went on to Columbia University to get his bachelor’s degree. While attending there he drove a taxi, one of many personal details he has revealed while presiding over trials.
Afterwards he spent four years trying to build a career as a drummer before going back to school to get his law degree. He graduated from New York University in 1979. Justice Engoron however, didn’t take the cookie-cutter path to becoming a justice in the Manhattan Supreme Court where he has been since 2013.
While he did work for a short while as a Park Avenue litigator, he left after two years to pursue a music career. He worked as a piano and drum teacher and then “a moderately successful bar-band keyboard player” according to his curriculum vitae reported by ABC News. In 1991 he began clerking for New York Supreme Court Justice Martin Schoenfield.
Judge Engoron was appointed to the New York City Civil Court in 2003, which handles small claims and other lawsuits. Ten years later he was appointed as an acting justice to the State Supreme Court. In 2016 he was elected, as a Democrat, permanently to the bench, he ran unopposed.
While his term runs through 2029, being 74 he will not be able to finish out his full term as New York requires judges at his level retire when they turn 76.
As a justice he has been described in The New York Times as “independent and thoughtful — if somewhat quirky” with a sense of humor often on display. Besides providing personal details he is fond of using puns and a fan of pop culture. He is a self-described free-speech absolutist and a member of the American Civil Liberties Union since 1994.